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The first reference to court buildings in Canberra was in Walter Burley 1911 plan. His central triangle contained various national buildings including the “Courts of Justice” on the shore of the central basin of the lake.

The High Court first appeared on an official Canberra plan as a named building in 1959 – a bland rectangle on its current site. The permanent Parliament House was next to it on the lake shore. On the other side of Parliament was the National Library – then a library to serve the Parliament rather than one for the whole nation. In that plan, the High Court building was to be one of half a dozen buildings – including national archives and museums. NCDC Chief Architect Roger Johnson called it “a great monumental plaza’’ or National Place.

But that fell in a heap when the politicians decided to become planners.

In 1968 a free vote in Parliament rejected the lakeside site for Parliament and it was notionally moved up to Camp Hill – back towards Capital Hill. The National Place with half a dozen buildings was then out of the question. According to NCDC staff architect and later commissioner, Paul Reid, Ministers in their offices would not have their view of the lake spoiled with buildings. They wanted more landscape and fewer buildings. So all but the High Court and the National Library (by then built) were removed from the plan. In effect, the High Court stood alone on the plans in a wide space. Even when the National Gallery of Australia was moved down the hill to be adjacent to the High Court, the court seemed – because of its isolation — to be too monumental, too grand and out of proportion.
Continue reading “2003_09_september_high_courtthe competition and design”

The English are experts at rigid queues and queuing.

I found myself earlier this week in a long queue at Brisbane Airport. It was so long that it snaked through all the available chrome pole and black tape queue controllers and had formed several more hairpin bends of its own to the very doors of the terminal. Continue reading “2003_09_september_forum for saty australia good queuers”

Is the property bubble about the burst, with a rippling effect across the economy?

Possibly, warns the Reserve Bank.

This week the Reserve held a seminar on what to do about the seemingly uncontrollable boom in property prices. It made the papers public. Continue reading “Property bubble not about to burst”

The repair job by ActewAGL to Canberra’s burnt out infrastructure was little short of miraculous.

ActewAGL coped so well for several reasons.

The homework had already been done. Detailed emergency plans are constantly reviewed. Not just for fire, but other emergencies such as earthquake and explosions and the like. Continue reading “The destruction and restoration of power”

Ross MacDiarmid has occasionally been in the wrong place at the wrong time, through no fault of his own.

He was working as the head of Ansett in Canberra when the airline went under. And January 18 saw him fighting fires on his rural leasehold in Tharwa. He – with family and friends — saved the house, but sheds, stock and fencing went.

But now he seems to be the right person in the right place. He has been the chief executive of newly named Australian Capital Tourism since MARCH 2002 (2002 MUST BE ADDED). The name change from the Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation was announced this month (June) but is yet to be formally approved by the Assembly.

It is not a change for the sake of change or a cosmetic change. The organisation wants to take the emphasis away from “events” – one in particular — and wants to concentrate on more than just Canberra. The words “Australian Capital” will embrace the region and help in marketing here and overseas.

“When I came to the job it was obvious to me that we were preoccupied with one event which was the V8 supercars,’’ he said. “While we were managing that – – and it was managed very well and it was a lot of fun being involved in — it consumed a huge amount of resources for this organisation. . . .

“While were we doing that we had no resources going into destination marketing or promotional activities. When you think about it, $19 million invested in that event over three years attracted a total number of 46,000 visitors to Canberra with some potential marginal publicity value. . . Not a very effective use of resources.”
Continue reading “2003_06_june_ross macdiarmid”

Ventnor has one of the few sand beaches in England. In the shops on Pier Street and High Street you can see postcards of the beach filled with swimmers on a bright sunny day. Reality is different. On the day I was there it was about eight degrees at the end of a non-existent English spring.

Ventnor is on the southern tip of the Isle of Wight. Its streets are engraved into a steep hill overlooking the cold English Channel. The colour of the sea could only be found on a paint colour chart – – an opaque pastel blend of grey and green.

I spent one hour and eight minutes in Ventnor. How can I be so precise? Because it tells me so on Page 40 of one of the most remarkable documents in the history of British cryptography – – the Isle of Wight Bus Guide.

Before that bleak spring day, I used to think that the longest distance between any two points was an ACTION bus route in Canberra. Not so. ACTION’s guide and bus routes are a quick crossword compared to The Times’s cryptic that is the Isle of Wight Bus Guide. The guide is an astonishing 96 pages (each 10cm by 20 cm) for an island a little larger than the city of Canberra (50km by 30km) and a population of just 130,000.
Continue reading “The Isle of Wight by bus”

The first results from the 2001 census were published yesterday. At first blush they confirm some well known trends: incomes are rising; the population is aging; more people are identifying themselves as of Aboriginal descent; Catholicism is the largest religion; more people are living alone; more people are using computers; and Queensland has the highest population growth and Tasmania’s population is declining. Continue reading “2002_06_june_leader17jun census”

Today the new Act Defamation Act comes into force. It is perhaps the most radical reform of defamation law in any Australian jurisdiction since 1788. Continue reading “2002_06_june_new defo”

Tn theory competition should bring prices down. It seems bizarre, therefore, that the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission has recommended that the ACT Government allow full retail electricity competition in the ACT even though the commission acknowledges that the residential consumers would pay on average about $2 more per month for electricity. Continue reading “2002_05_may_leader24may electricity”

There have been some encouraging trends in the Australian Public Service over the representation of women in its higher echelons, but there is still a way to go in some departments.

The Public Service Commissioner’s Workplace Diversity Report 2000-01 revealed that the percentage of women in the Senior Executive Service in Defence has risen from 10.6 per cent in 1999-00 to 15.5 per cent in 2000-01. That is an impressive result, but it is off a low base, and Defence has the greatest gender imbalance in the SES. Treasury went backwards from 25.6 per cent to 17.5 and the Australian Bureau of Statistics went from 14.3 per cent to 17.5 per cent. These remain the poorest performing departments.

Women are much better represented in Education, Training and Youth Affairs and Health and Aged Care, both in terms of absolute numbers and the increase over the year.
Continue reading “2001_11_november_leader23nov ps women”